169th SPICE Meeting at the "Baltic Dynamics 2013": Competence Building for Smart Growth

Riga, Latvia
11 – 14 Sep 2013

ThThe 18th Baltic Dynamics conference, organized by BASTIC, Baltic Association of Science and Technology Parks and Innovation Centers together with LITCA, Latvian Innovation and Technology Center Association, brought together more than 20 participants for pre-conference workshops, the conference “Competence Building for Smart Growth”, and the 169th SPICE Meeting.
At the conference opening participants honored one of the founders of BASTIC, Raivo Tamkivi, who passed away in November last year by standing up for a minute of silence. Before that Janis Stabulnieks (for BASTIC) and Heinz Fiedler (for SPICE Group) as well as a video presentation by Luis Sanz (for IASP) remembered on the important and leading role Raivo Tamkivi had played for building up the innovation and entrepreneurship support system in his home country, Estonia, as well as in the Baltic States and internationally.
The conference one more time offered a packed program of workshops and plenary sessions. For example, a roundtable session discussing the ways training for entrepreneurs could be developed according the needs of the target group. Heinz Fiedler, SPICE Group president, contributed to this workshop by providing a short summary of experiences gained from training incubator management in various countries and discussing experiences and conceptual ideas of the participants. Other workshops and conference sessions dealt with the development of Cooperation in the Baltic Sea Region, discussed Strategic Approaches for Building Knowledge based Society and put light into The role of Science and Technology Parks Incubators in Competence Building and Business Acceleration. This session presented latest developments in technology incubation in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania and compared these to experience from the USA as well as internationally presented by Barbara Harley and Heinz Fiedler who also moderated the workshop and the very lively discussion.
The 169th SPICE Meeting attended by six members and two invited guests focused on discussing potentials, expectations, and challenges for the future development of this network. Other parts of this meeting were the great SPICE Dinner hosted by Janis Stabulnieks in an excellent restaurant with art on the walls, on the table clothes, and on the plates as well as a SPICE excursion to historical places of Latvia.
Last not least, the welcome reception by the Municipality of Riga City in the historical
The welcome reception by the Municipality of Riga City in the historical Small Guild Hall, the conference gala dinner with life music in th restaurant “Biblioteka No 1”, and the ceremony to plant the Innovation Tree of Latvia in the “Garden of Destiny” (see separate report) added to the social part of the Baltic Dynamics 2013.

Host: Latvian Technological Center
Contact: Janis Stabulnieks send mail